Recent closing statements in the landmark Proposition 8 trial offered a good recap of the best arguments on each side of the same-sex marriage debate. For the opposition, possibly the strongest is the claim that children need a mother and a father, and that marriage is the institution that ties heterosexual sex to childbirth and parenting.
Clearly, that’s one thing that marriage does, but it can’t be the only purpose of the institution. If it were, we wouldn’t let 80-year-olds get married, and if you’ve had a hysterectomy, then forget it. To complicate matters, gays and lesbians also raise children, and an institution that ties them to their kids, and that empowers them to raise their children responsibly, seems like a reasonable addition to the law.
